I have to breathe topic regularly or I pass out.

Oh my, JohnSweden, may I please tag? I'm in love with this sentence.

Although Frank first broached the topic, the proposal was made quickly (less than 30 minutes and four Boxed Set posts later) by SPN fan AmyLiz, and then seconded by SPN fans Cindy, askye, Anne W., and JenP.

This is entirely true. But I've said I didn't quite understand the way others might feel about creating a thread, and I *wasn't* doing it out of, "Hey, I want our own clubhouse because that would be COOL!"

I routinely second proposals, whether or not I plan to vote in favor them, just because I figure issues, once raised, should be discussed and settled. I also routinely second proposals made by my friends.

I hope the SPN fans who are hurt know I didn't second it to boot you (us) out. I seconded it, so the discussion could start, and because my friend Amy was brave enough to make the proposal (for whatever reasons).

Which I hadn't really understood until we got this far into the discussion.

Yeah, this.

People keep implying that the proposal came from non-SPN fans. Just to be clear: Although Frank first broached the topic, the proposal was made quickly (less than 30 minutes and four Boxed Set posts later) by SPN fan AmyLiz, and then seconded by SPN fans Cindy, askye, Anne W., and JenP.

It's true, she did. But only after she said this:

I feel sort of guilty about it, Frank, mostly because I don't participate in any other discussion in here. I'll propose it if you want, because we're losing the Veronica Mars thread once the S3 DVDs are released.

(emphasis mine)

AmyLiz "Boxed Set, Vol. IV: It's always suicide-mission this, save-the-planet that." Jul 14, 2007 5:23:10 pm PDT

I've been saying since the beginning that I don't find guilt a good basis for thread creation.

Y'know, I did try to caveat my point with

I'm not trying to dismiss the fact that non-fans played a role in the proposal, but it's not as much as some people are making it out to be.

And Hec and JS have me wanting to nod my head, too. Though I want to clarify this

And the way that it happened is what felt like a rejection. A rejection that felt personal sort of along the lines of "B.org doesn't like you anymore."

Because while there's kind of a little of this, it's also wrapped in so very much with the part where at least I am feeling like I unintentionally did a multipart guac slamdance on people's toes, despite trying to do more of a graceful sort of salsa number or something around them.

I'll propose it if you want

Yes, she said that. But she then proposed it without waiting for an answer, so I think my point (and caveat) stands.

I feel sort of guilty about it, Frank, mostly because I don't participate in any other discussion in here. I'll propose it if you want, because we're losing the Veronica Mars thread once the S3 DVDs are released.

I think I missed this, or skimmed it in my shock over how fast things had advanced, because if I'd seen this at the time I would have tried to put the kibbosh on the proposal then and there. Among other reasons because I totally agree with Lee's statement:

I've been saying since the beginning that I don't find guilt a good basis for thread creation.

I phrased it badly (and as I try to recall my exact mindset, probably a moment of exasperation), but I seriously just wanted to find out if there was support for an SPN thread for those discussing SPN and/or if there was a reason why BS was the place they wanted to be. I found out, but not the way I ever would have guessed or wanted.

I should add that I missed "I'll propose it if you want" when I checked back into the board and realized that the proposal had already been made. Definitely my fault because I had to go out after dropping what turned out to be a bombshell - I should have posted something about not being around for the next several hours (or quite honestly, shouldn't have posted that then when I knew I couldn't be around if there was reaction).

(Frank, I had edited in a way that you quoted something I took out, but I put it back)

But she then proposed it without waiting for an answer, so I think my point (and caveat) stands.

So does what Hec said.

In any event, aside from who proposed the thread or seconded it, it did not come from an impulse to have a private clubhouse for SPN. It came as a response to objections about how much space SPN took up in BS.

I think that falls under my caveat, Lee.

Sorry, I'm getting snippy. Time for bed....

Okay, I do have a pony in this race, and it's you. My peeps. All of you.

I'm really saddened that Plei, Bev, Lee, Cass and juliana (among others, it's get's hazy around the edges..) feel like their squee and flail is being shown the door and handed its hat.

It makes me sad because even though I did not share any of this squee and flail, it made me really, really, really happy to know it was going on. I would see the words and it would make me smile, even though I only caught bits of it, usually on my live journal flist.

I had no idea, until just yesterday, that there was a volume-of-squee issue in Boxed Set. But if I was a regular poster in BS, I could just as easily have been Frank or anybody else who has contributed to any feelings of shown-door-handed-hat-ness over the last blah number of days/weeks/months this has been building up.

I really hate that we have to stop talking about this tomorrow, because I think we've gotten closer to the heart of the issues that always seem to be lurking around here and B'cracy than we ever have before.

This is what I meant last night about "beholden to our past." It feels like almost the entire thread structure and creation approach is in place because of how things happened when we were on TT, and then WX after that. And all the threads that were sort of grandfathered in. And then all kinds of other stuff that happened once the Phoenix rose.

From where I'm sitting, that structure is showing some real wear at the seams. People who love each other are making some of the very people they love (who love those same people right back) feel very unloved and unwelcome, for doing one of the very things the first group of people love them for in the first place. Even if maybe they just want to do something else, and would like to find a way to do that.

I think there is an amicable solution to this problem, and I think it's to talk about how we want to talk about things.

Maybe the solution isn't creating single show threads for every show that gets a certain volume, maybe the solution is to create a place for Buffistas that want to talk about shows (or whatever) in a cross-pollenating, media-fannish way, and a space for others to talk about shows they want to talk about, with the people they want to talk about them with, but only when they've caught up on Tivo, without risk of getting spoiled for other shows they haven't caught up on or being tossed in a party room where the noise level all around is so much that they feel like they can't get a word in edgewise.

No, I don't know how to do any of that without basically creating a couple of bucket threads of odd, poorly defined scope, and a bunch of single show threads, but maybe if we all sat down and talked about it, and thought about it, we could figure it out.

It feels like a problem that keeps cropping up (in various odd guises, with different people involved at different stages), but it also feels like a problem that can only achieve a lasting solution by coming at it sideways. And instead of doing that, we all take a frontal approach and the problem only gets stuffed back into its hidey-hole to await its next opportunity to leap out at us.